Domain: rocketlabusa.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to rocketlabusa.com.
Comments · 5
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Re:The rules don't see fair... do they?
Well, there are five teams who have scheduled launches. A Japanese team and an Indian team are riding up on the same Indian rocket. A team from the US is working with Rocket Lab USA. An Israeli team is working with SpaceX and an international team is working with Interorbital Systems.
So, if SpaceX has to delay launching the Israeli's for 6 months, all the other teams have to call their launch providers and say, "Hey, can you hold off on our payload for six months?"
At this point, I'd extend it only if it looks like no one will make the deadline.
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Re:BS
Down here in New Zealand we have a company looking to get into the small satellite launch game. Rocket Labs.
Perhaps New Zealand could be considered more friendly than India and some business will come down South. Their URL even has "USA" in it to show how US-friendly they are.
They haven't launched a production Electron vehicle yet, but the launch site is built and first try is scheduled for some time in the next few months. -
Re: Power to them
According to their site they are a US company with a NZ subsidiary.
https://rocketlabusa.com/about...
So would likely need US approval.. just sayin..
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Re:Hype pain
It would make sense to primary batteries, to the point of being the overwhelmingly obvious choice. However, they aren't even using plain lithium-ion:
http://www.rocketlabusa.com/ab..."Rutherford adopts an entirely new propulsion cycle, making use of brushless DC motors and high performance Lithium Polymer batteries to drive its turbo pumps."
Lithium polymer batteries being a form of lithium ion batteries that have an electrolyte with a bunch of added gelling additives, or an actual polymer electrolyte, trading some of their capacity for flexibility in form factor and leak-proofness that makes them better for things like cell phones. I don't know why they'd choose these batteries, but it's what their website says they're using.
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Re:Hype pain
Fuel cells can achieve high energy density due to using tanks of fuel, but their power density may not be up to driving a fuel pump for a launch vehicle. They are also limited in fuels. This rocket appears to use some form of semi-liquid monopropellant.
They state they use lithium polymer batteries on this page: http://www.rocketlabusa.com/ab...
This is a rather odd choice. The main advantages of LiPo are rechargability and ability to be formed into thin cell-phone-friendly shapes, and they make tradeoffs to achieve these advantages compared to other lithium-ion and non-rechargable lithium batteries. LiPo batteries aren't a huge improvement over alkaline batteries in energy density, and are a few times worse than lithium metal batteries. An oxygen tank and lithium-air "battery" (actually a type of metallic fuel cell) might be a relatively good choice.